We will test new solution based on the ATI RV350 VPU (RADEON 9600 PRO) from FIC. We are going to figure out how the performance of this graphics solution depends on the texturing quality settings, and to study the theoretical performance potential behind the RV350 chip compared with its closest rival: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 Ultra.

As you see, FIC R96P on RADEON 9600 PRO works perfectly well with pixel shaders version 2.0, which unfortunately cannot be said about NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 Ultra. Once we start thinking about the future games, we understand that the today’s generation of NVIDIA’s GPUs will be hardly suitable for them because of the extremely low pixel shaders processing speed. This is just a theoretical test, anyway, but 24fps in 64x480 can never be called an acceptable result. Do you agree?

Ragtroll test is pretty interesting, because it is not only a good performance test for vertex shader unit, but also a well-balanced benchmark for the entire system, as it uses a real physical model for falling trolls, which loads the CPU quite a bit. Both FIC R96P and the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra demonstrate pretty adequate results with RADEON 9600 leading in low resolutions and GeForce FX 5600 Ultra winning in high resolutions.

All in all, 3DMark03 is exactly the place where RADEON 9600 PRO (FIC R96P) shows its best. The results obtained in synthetic benchmarks show very well, which of the two has a more promising future ahead.

In addition to the 3DMark benchmarks, we tested the RADEON 9600 PRO and GeForce FX 5600 Ultra using the software you are already familiar with from our NV35, NV30 and NV31 reviews (see our Video section fot details). The results were fully predictable.